The Princeton Connection

By John Callahan

Reed, an aging Navy Seal, returns home to care for his father who is dying from ALS. At seventeen, when he enlisted into the Navy program his father labeled him a failurea name tag he would carry in his heart and mind all the time he served. When he joined the Navy Seal program he vowed not to quit the rugged training and duty to prove to his father that he wasnt a failure as he predicted, but a brave combatant.

His training as a Navy Seal toughened his muscles and sense of urgencies to defeat his enemies in battle. And as a combatant, he became a leader of men, but it hadnt prepare him for the complex International mental games he would encounter in his future career working as an operative for a splinter CIA Company.

Romance eluded him, but his persistence to overcome his romantic shortfalls left him chasing ways to impress a woman who continually bested him in a language exchange.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496936691

John Callahan

John Callahan (1951–2010) was a nationally syndicated cartoonist known for his frank portrayals of challenging subjects, in particular disability. Callahan, who became a quadriplegic following a car accident at age twenty-one, drew cartoons that touched upon addiction, ableism, and the absurd. He was the creator of the Nickelodeon cartoon Pelswick.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

R eed arrived home around 12:30 a.m. His parents were asleep since they routinely went to bed at nine sharp, and the house was completely dark with all of the doors locked. It had been seven years since his last visit home, and his second since he’d first joined the Navy seventeen long years ago. During his time away Reed outgrew his tumultuous teenage years and became a true warrior with the Navy Seals.

He lifted the doormat and found the key under the very corner his mother first left it when he was a high school teen, and nothing had changed since. The thought of it made him smile inwardly. His father’s strict curfew rules were impossible for him to follow, but his mother most often found a way to quell the unwarranted punishments his father would inflict on him daily.

Tired, with second thoughts about not being able to reup with the Navy Seals and uncertain of his future, he remembered his earlier years at home and the many ways his mother helped him through his teen years fraught with daily clashes with his overly strict father. He came home to help his mother care for his ailing father, who was dying from a terminal disease.

Mother always protected Reed no matter how minor or serious the infraction. When Reed was a youth, his father was constantly at odds with his son, but not with his daughters. His mother always saw to it that his father’s quick temper didn’t lead to a quick punishment for Reed. After he broke one of his father’s many military-style rules, and before his punishment was about to be metered out, Mother would coax his father aside for a hushed meeting in the corner of the kitchen. After a brief discussion between the two, Father would generally sulk his way to the living room, and that meant he had temporarily rescinded another of his overbearing rules of life for his only son during his teen years.

His aging parents, now in their early eighties, struggled with health issues. Their contact with their only son was nonexistent during recent years, and Reed, hesitant and unsure about how his homecoming would be received, sighed heavily to relieve his concern. But, nonetheless, it was the right thing to do. Time at home would be considerably different now. His life in the military had hardened him, much like it had done for his father during World War II. And now Reed had come home to help his mother care for his ailing father, a retired postal carrier and a veteran of World War II. Reed knew the upcoming days would present unknown difficulties—possibly extreme difficulties, which he was unsure about being able to handle. Perhaps he didn’t owe his father any special attention, but he did owe it to his mother for the love and protection she gave him throughout his youthful years.

Doubts about whether he had the desire to care for a father who had been uncaringly strict with him since his early teens came to mind. Regardless of how hard he tried, Reed could never let go of the recollection of the senseless punishments his father metered out to him for the slightest infraction of his father’s military-type rules. His senior year in high school was unbearable because his father continually ragged on him about something he’d forgotten to do, why he had came home minutes after curfew, or why he hadn’t completed a chore to his father’s liking. And the many ways Reed tried to win over his father’s favor with his successes in sports and his grades went without recognition of any kind.

On his way home Reed struggled with thoughts of how to explain to his mother why it had taken him eighteen long months to respond to her letter filled with tearful pleas for help. His delay in returning home was the result of a strict Navy Seal order. He clutched his mother’s letter in his hand and let out a heavy sigh. Her plea for help was written eighteen months earlier because his father had been stricken with ALS (better known as Lou Gerhig’s disease), a debilitating illness— a disease that destroys the muscles, one by one, until the patient dies. In her letter his mother asked him to return home immediately to help her care for his father. During his discharge procedure he’d reread the painfully written letter numerous times, but it always contained the same message—quit what you are doing now — come home to help your father die peacefully.

As a Navy Seal he had been on a secret mission for those eighteen months, and he had received the letter only days earlier, after the mission was completed. But how could he explain the rotten circumstances that delayed his homecoming? Surely his mother wouldn’t understand his answer—no matter how carefully he explained it to her. There was no way an Iowa born woman could understand the workings of a Navy Seal’s secret mission directive. Once a communiqué was given by a senior officer to commence training for a secret mission, then no further communication could transpire in or out until the mission was executed and completed. It meant no mail, no calls, and no correspondence of any kind. Even a notice of death couldn’t be received or sent during the mission.

Never in the past had his Mother asked him for any special favors, especially this extreme. His decision not to reup with the Seal Program and come home to help her care for his father was not an easy one for him to make. Returning to the small town in Iowa where he was raised created further doubts about the future. The painful words in his mother’s letter continued to ramble through his thoughts like huge boulders tumbling down a cliff.

Warm feelings cloaked his body as he unlocked the front door and returned the key to its rightful place under the doormat. The old saying, "Home is where the heart is," came to mind, but Reed had his doubts about his homecoming at this protracted time. Everything was pitch dark, but he recalled his way to the dining room and then to the kitchen, where Mother always kept a sweet something stored in the cabinet next to the stove for him and his sisters to munch on after Father went upstairs to bed.

And then, as he passed the dining room table, he recalled the bottle of Jack Daniel’s his father always kept in the glass front cabinet on his left side. He opened the cabinet door. The door creaked loudly as he opened it, startling him— but the door was now open. He paused to listen for any stirring from upstairs. He reached in and felt around. The square bottle that always housed the dark brown contents of Jack Daniel’s bourbon was there— it was there—still in its place where father always kept it for untold years.

A wry smile erupted. Thoughts of when he craved to drink from this bottle as a teenager came to mind. His father’s quick temper was a reminder not to break his staunch rules because of the punishment that was sure to follow. He hadn’t once handled that bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his teen years for fear of being caught. He unscrewed the cap, and thought for a fleeting moment before putting the bottle opening to his mouth. It had been seven years since he had tasted alcohol of any kind, and it would be best if he didn’t taste it now, but the urge to drink from his father’s particular bottle overcame his willpower to abstain.

The long sip of Jack Daniel’s bourbon wetted his tongue and flowed smoothly down his throat. "Ah!" He muttered indistinctly. During his early Navy years Jack Daniel’s had become his favorite drink. It had been seven years since he had enjoyed the captivating feeling he’d received from drinking alcohol. He sat in the darkened dining room and thought about his childhood. It now seemed like ages ago. He was 34 and had been in the Navy for seventeen years, and in all of that time he had only returned home twice. He thought about his two sisters, the family gatherings on the holidays, and the very special Christmas day when his father gave him his first hunting rifle. One sister was two years older and the other one was two years younger than he. During his high school days he learned a lot about girls from his sisters that he then used when he sought a woman’s company while in the Navy. His sisters probably both lived close by, which was how life happened in small towns in the Midwest.

He flew in from San Diego to Waterloo, and then took the bus to his hometown in Ames, Iowa. When he arrived in Ames, the bus station was already closed for the night, and he walked the eight blocks to his parent’s home while refreshing his memory about his childhood days.

He took another long drink of Jack Daniel’s. It flowed down his throat, and the pure nectar taste of Jack Daniel’s bourbon satisfied his desire to overcome the fear his father had put in him many years before. During his first seven years in the Navy he had become a problem drinker, but when he joined the Seal program he gave up his drinking binges in lieu of his desire to complete the very difficult boot camp training of the Seals, and he hadn’t reengaged in drinking alcohol since.

Basic Seal training was filled with long torturous runs in soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacle courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable. The endless eighteen-hour days of fatiguing assignments brought with it unbelievable muscle and body aches that lasted well into the night. Nights filled with tears, hidden of course, but the tears outwardly revealed his doubts about finishing strong enough to stay within the system for another day. The brass bell in the center of the compound was visible for all to see. Just go out, ring the bell, and these miserable times would miraculously end. He’d thought of ringing the bell a number of times to end his miseries, but he had joined the Seal program to prove himself worthy of his manhood. His father’s daily reminders of his ability to succeed in life always drove his ambitions further to achieve more than most young men in the military service could expect to achieve.

Before the basic course ended eighty percent of the recruits failed, rung the bell, and dropped out of the program. Only the toughest and best suited for this rugged duty survived those days of training, and the most efficient survivors moved on to the special duty set aside for the impossible tasks only assigned to Navy Seal units to accomplish. Since his basic days he had participated in ten successful missions, and during that time he became a leader of men as a result of his ability to react to unforeseen problems, his fearless action in critical times, and his high regard to never leave a wounded buddy in harm’s way, for which he received numerous medals and commendations.

He laid his head on the immaculate dining room table and fell asleep. It seemed like minutes before he woke, but it was actually hours later when the rays of the morning sun shone through the worn lace curtains that covered the dining room windows. He quickly returned the Jack Daniel’s bottle to its coveted place in the dining room cabinet, gave it an affectionate pat, wiped the moisture left by the bottle on the ornate wood covering of the tabletop with his sleeve, and went into the kitchen.

Mother’s kitchen was as immaculate as ever. His mother had devoted her entire married life to constantly cleaning the small kitchen. The same appliances were still in their usual place. Nothing had changed. The on-the- counter dish rack was empty as always, since it was Mother’s last act to return the dishes to their proper place in the cupboard before retiring upstairs. She always concerned herself about a bug searching her kitchen for a misplaced piece of food, but they wouldn’t dare enter her kitchen if they knew what was good for them.

Could he be brave enough to make some coffee? Reed questioned. After thinking about it, he concluded it wouldn’t be wise if he moved anything in her kitchen. Mother would not be pleased. He badly wanted a cup of coffee, but he wouldn’t dare use anything in her kitchen. She wouldn’t allow him or his father to fix anything in her kitchen. Mother always said, ‘It’s not a man’s job to fix his own food’, so Father and Reed never intruded into her kitchen to even make coffee. Her daughters were allowed to do anything as long as they left the kitchen cleaner than when they first began. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked out to the back yard. It appeared more spacious than he recalled. It had been his job every Saturday for four years to keep it groomed to his father’s liking, and to replace the tools to their rightful place afterwards. He smiled just thinking about those tortured times when his friends were playing tackle football and he was cutting the grass with the antique push lawnmower. He hated cutting the lawn when he wanted to play with his friends.

Life isn’t all about play son, work gives each of us a propensity to develop a rightful character, he recalled. His father gave him the same redundant lecture over and over. Why his father sought him out to avenge his life’s frustrations never came to light.

His last seven years as a Navy Seal had been hard, but it had been the most rewarding—rewarding not only because it was filled with energy work to qualify for the most dangerous missions in the military service, but it had also been worthwhile to prove to himself he was not a slouch like his father called him so many times during his high school days.

He heard his mother’s footsteps on the stairs. He remembered them so clearly. Should I stay in the kitchen or rush out to the front porch because someone coming into the house without her knowledge might startle her? He pondered.

It would need to be a quick decision, but he had become accustomed to making quick, quiet decisions. It was part of his training as a Navy Seal. It would trouble his mother greatly if she knew someone entered the house without her knowing it. He quickly rose, pushed the kitchen chair back into its rightful place, rushed through the dining room, grabbed his backpack, and strode quickly and quietly for the front door. The door clicked closed behind him. He decided to wait for about ten minutes before ringing the doorbell.

The paperboy rode by, paused, gave him a suspicious look, and tossed the paper, which landed with a thump on the porch. Within minutes the front door opened and Mother came out to retrieve the morning paper.

And then…

Reed, I can’t believe you’ve come home after all of this time! Give me a hug, and tell me what you have been doing with yourself.

She planted a big kiss on his cheek and forehead and Reed returned her kisses with a kiss to her cheek. Her embrace calmed his apprehensions about coming home to tend to his father.

My, you are so muscular and your shoulders are so wide. You’ve grown up while you were gone.

Mother, it is good to be home. I came in on the 12:30 a.m. bus, and I didn’t want to wake you.

Son, we still have the key under the mat, or have you forgotten the nights when you would sneak in after your father’s curfew time, she said with a shallow laugh.

Mother, I didn’t remember the key. I’ve come home to help you with Dad. Reed commented shyly.

I wrote you so long ago. It puzzled me for months why you didn’t come home or answer my letter, and then I thought you hadn’t forgiven your father for his treatment of you as a youngster. I have never understood why Father disliked you so.

Reed thought momentarily. Should I tell her the truth—a truth she wouldn’t or couldn’t possibly understand or believe— or should I tell a small white lie? He chose the latter.

Mother, I had a hard time getting leave. I put seventeen years in the Navy and decided not to reup. I’m home for good now. I’m here to help you take care of Father.

Oh my, Reed, you’re home for good. You mean you want to live here permanently? I have my hands full taking care of your father, and I can’t do much in the way of taking care of you too. The times have become so hard lately, that I am generally exhausted before noon.

Mother, I’m here to help you. I won’t be in the way. I’m here to care for Dad and I know how to cook my own food now.

Cook your own food? Not in this house, you won’t. I will not have you cooking in my kitchen. It’s not a man’s job to cook his own meals. You should have remembered that, son. We are barely scraping by with the doctor’s bills and such. Your father is completely bedridden now, and I needed to hire help getting him out of bed and to the bathroom. He can’t sit in a wheelchair more than a couple of hours a day now.

Mother, I am so sorry things have come to this. I am here to help you do all of those things. I am strong and I can lift him and give him a shower and take him to the stool when need be. I will sit with him all day, read to him, or entertain him in any way I can find. I will do all of the hard work and relieve you of the heartache of doing everything by yourself.

Reed, it is important I tell you. We are terribly in debt and I haven’t managed our bills well. We are living on your father’s pension, which isn’t enough, and I don’t think we could afford to feed another mouth.

I have money from my discharge. I can help with all of that. Believe me, Mother, I won’t be a problem, but I’m here to help you care for Dad. Have my sisters been helping you? Do they both live close by?

They both live close and they each have three children. They have their hands full taking care of their children and husbands. Your father and I have struggled with this illness for four years now and each day he can do less. When I wrote you I was at my wits end and didn’t know if I would make it through another day or not. I have now accepted what has happened. We’ll lose the house in the near future, and I don’t know what will happen to us then. We’re living here one day at a time. The church has been helping me financially for some time now, but the pastor told me he would have to reduce their financial help in the near future. The parishioners bring a meal or two for us each week.

Mother, I had no idea things were that bad for you. I thought the mortgage was paid many years ago.

If you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about the finances right now. You look so fit. It seems like the Navy has agreed with you. Father sleeps late, so I suggest we have breakfast first, and you can tell me what you have done in the Navy, and you can tell me if you are married or not.

Mother, I’m home to help with Father. Your letter was so poignant I was deeply concerned about your health. It sounded like you were on the edge of giving up.

Son, I’ve been on the edge of giving up every day for over two years now. Your father’s illness, the pressure of the bills— most of the time I feel so alone I want to die.

We’ll work on these problems one day at a time, and I will not let you down from here on.

Reed, if you only could. Why don’t you go up to see your father now? He is in your bedroom. We can no longer sleep together. I’m not sure he will recognize you because he has been having memory lapses lately, and he seldom talks anymore. You have to read his facial expressions and his eyes. Be gentle with him, and be sure to smile all of the time. He feels guilty putting me through all of this trouble, but when I smile and tell him I love him his frowns go away, and he manages a slight smile. His illness has been difficult for both of us to accept. His fellow workers at the post office visit from time to time and it gives me a chance to get out or go to church. Now go, and I’ll fix a nice breakfast for you. Our hens still lay lovely eggs for us to enjoy each day.

Reed started up the stairway. He hadn’t recalled it being so dark and narrow. In his teenage years he vaulted up and down the stairway four steps at a time in a rush to get away from his father’s demeaning words or to go out to play. He opened the door to his old bedroom. A crack in the door still remained where he punched it to vent his anger with his father. Those days weren’t his happiest because of a number of things. His father’s stint in the Army during World War II had hardened him. He would never talk about those service days, but during the stressful times Mother would mention his kind-hearted tendencies before he went off to war.

His father had been a postal carrier all of his life. The job didn’t pay well, and he seldom received overtime pay except during the Christmas holiday season. That was the best job he could find in Ames, the place he was born.

Reed gathered his wits about him before entering because he wasn’t sure what he was about to see. His muscles hardened much like they did when he was about to charge into an enemy stronghold. His father was a strapping six foot-four man, equipped with a strong set of muscles. He was an Army World War II veteran, and after the service he must have walked a million miles delivering the mail.

Reed emitted a quiet gasp as he approached the bed. His father couldn’t have weighed over 135 pounds and the skin on his face was drawn tightly over his cheekbones. Reed smiled broadly although his father didn’t return his smile. His father’s stare from the hollowed-out sockets of his face set his mind adrift. His father’s limp hand hung off the bed and Reed gently lifted it, held it momentarily, and placed it on his chest. His father didn’t speak, but he stared directly at him. His eyes didn’t waver. There was just a hollow stare coming from his glazed-over eyes.

His father’s reaction to seeing him made him feel uncomfortable, but he forced himself to pull the chair closer to the bed as he reached for his father’s hand.

Dad, I’m home for good. I’m here to take care of you for as long as you will put up with me. Reed spoke slowly and stopped intermittently to smile broadly. I haven’t been the son you always wanted, but I’m here to make up for all of that now. I’m home to help Mother care for your needs.

A pleasant look dawned on his father’s face. His apology was working. It was a first step—an important step. The future path would be difficult, but Reed had learned to deal with difficult situations while in the Seal program. They sat in silence for untold minutes. Reed wasn’t sure what to say, but silence for the moment appeared sufficient. He held his father’s hand—a hand that had deteriorated to only skin and bone. He felt a twinge of remorse run down his spine. His years of built up anger and dislike for his father came to mind, but the last silent moments had flushed the memories of his teen years away. Strangely, he felt empty inside, and reflected for a reason. After all, his last seventeen years had been filled with growing hatred for his father’s treatment of him during his teen years.

Mother called out from the foot of the stairs, interrupting his thoughts.

Reed, breakfast is ready. Come down now and get it before it gets cold. You know how punctual I am with my meals and I expect you to be the same. The rules you were raised with still apply in this house.

Reed patted his father’s hand and placed it on his chest once more. His father hadn’t moved the entire time he’d sat beside him. His father closed his eyes and dozed off as Reed closed the door behind him. He walked slowly down the stairs while trying to get his thinking straight again. It took only minutes, but it gave him time to recoup himself. He wiped the tears from his eyes. No one deserved to have this terrible disease—not even his father who had treated him so badly for years.

Mother, has he been this bad for long?

Son, let’s not talk about it now. If you remember we only discussed pleasant thoughts at meal times. It used to give your father indigestion if we discussed problems at mealtime. You need to tell me what you have been doing. Your physique has changed so. You are a bundle of muscles. Have you married yet, and do you have any children?

I have been too busy putting out fires around the world to think about marriage. When I got accepted into the Seal program my time was filled with a constant series of training and missions without a break. There are so few Navy Seal units that we were constantly on call. It has been challenging for me, but it has made my life worthwhile. I was going to reenlist, but when I read your letter about Dad I made up my mind to come home to help you.

Eat your breakfast now, son, before it gets cold. I’m going up to feed your father. I laid the morning paper next to your plate like I used to do for your father. There is more coffee on the stove and you can make more toast if you’d like. Reed, it is so lovely to have you come home.

A wave of compassion flooded Reed’s thoughts. His mother was frail and she looked completely worn out, but she accepted his late arrival in her normal patient way. It wasn’t like Mother to allow Reed or his father to use the toaster or pour his own coffee. He found her change most unusual. His mother left with a plate of food and a sipper cup for his father. He helped himself to more scrambled eggs and made two more pieces of toast and applied a thick layer of Mother’s homemade fig jam. The food tasted so good. Mother’s cooking was always the best. His high school friends used to gather at the house to eat the fresh baked bread Mother made on Thursday mornings, and to flirt with his sisters. Those were pleasant thoughts. Other thoughts of when he and his father were fighting for days on end crowded out his thoughts about his time in high school.

Regardless of the mixed thoughts about being home, it was good his mother took his homecoming in stride. Mother was always accommodating, but Father always found a way to correct his son. That was the reason he’d joined the Navy the day he turned seventeen, and his father gladly signed the papers to allow him to do so. The day he left for the service his father said to him, I wasn’t able to make a man out of you, but maybe the Navy will. His father’s last words had stuck in his mind for years. His sisters couldn’t do anything wrong, but it wasn’t the same for him. His father hadn’t ever spoken about it, but it was well known in the family circle that he carried a grudge those many years because he hadn’t achieved the rank of Master Sergeant during his service years in World War II.

The screen door creaked opened and his younger sister Madeline entered.

Reed, my God, it’s you, and you’ve finally come home to help Mother. Come here and give me a hug. Wow! You’re all muscle. Tell me, what have you been doing with yourself? Don’t tell me you have been in the brig all of this time and there was nothing else to do but lift weights.

Cynical Sis. You’re just as ornery as you used to be, and as usual, you have it all wrong. I’ve been a Navy Seal for the past seven years. It’s the training that caused all of these muscles. As a Seal you have to be ready for every bad or unexpected happening. I’m home to help Mother with Dad. I didn’t reup in the Navy, and I’m here for as long as Mother needs me. I saw Dad a few moments ago, and he looks really ill.

I know. Dad has been completely bedridden for about a year now, and it has taken a toll on Mother’s health. They’re on the verge of losing the house, and they are far behind on most of their bills around town. Every time I go into the local grocery store the owner tells me they are getting too far behind with their grocery bill. Mother told me she wrote you a long time ago and you didn’t answer her letter. What do you have to say about that?

Sis, it’s history. I’m here now and that’s what counts. It will be hard living at home again, but I owe Mother for all the good things she did for me as a youngster. Let’s talk about what is happening with the family. Is everything as bad as Mother said it was?

It couldn’t be worse. Harry and I don’t have the funds to help them more than we do. Harry, my husband, works at the bank and the bank has allowed leniency on the house mortgage loan because he works there, but he can’t put them off much longer. You know how bankers think.

Oh my God, you married that nerd, Harry Henson. I can’t believe it. He doesn’t deserve you. I remember when he used to follow you around like a puppy dog following his mother for the next feeding. Tell me Sis, what have you been up to all of these years besides having kid after kid? If I remember in high school you had a half dozen of those nerdy guys following you around. By the way, do you have any idea how you got pregnant so many times in such a short time?

Same old brother. You’re full of bullshit, as usual. I would think you would have changed your ways after all of this time. Reed, your dry humor doesn’t sit well with me. In all the time you’ve been gone you haven’t learned how to cool that kind of talk. In high school you wanted to know all about my personal friends. Many times I found you listening at my bedroom door, trying to learn something—I never found out what you were so inquisitive about.

Oh Sis, I was just clowning around. You didn’t take to my teasing very well, did you? Before I left for the Navy you had a number of eligible guys following you wherever you went and you settled for Harry. That’s wild.

Now that you’re back home I hope you don’t expect me to answer all of your silly questions.

Shush! Here comes Mother. I don’t want her to know we’ve been fighting.

Hello Madeline. How are all of the children today? Tell me, did Harry get the promotion he was hoping for at the bank?

No Mother, he didn’t get the promotion. They are still interviewing more people for the job. I do think he has a good chance to get it, but he’s not too sure the Vice President will select him. The kids are back in school, and I have some free time to help you. I’m so glad summer is over and the kids are in school. They almost drove me crazy this summer with their antics. I thought I could do the laundry for you every week during the school year. How’s Dad doing this morning?

He’s about the same, not much change. Seems to be in pain all of the time now. I talked to Dr. Parsons about it, but he won’t put him on the heavier pain medicine. He said it would cause him to have diarrhea, and I couldn’t deal with that more than I do now.

I can take the laundry with me and do it at my house. I am canning pickles today, and I’ll have some free time in between.

Thank you dear, that is very thoughtful. Dad has pottied in all of his nightgowns, but I rinse them out right away so the stains won’t set. They are soiled, but there are no remains of potty in them. They just need a good dash of Clorox in the washer and hang them out on the line so they will air out a while longer, will you?

Mother, gather up those clothes now. I want to leave. Reed, I’m living in the corner house next to the Kennedy’s. Stop in and see the kids and say hello to Harry. You two ran around together during your senior year.

Madeline, how could you have married that nut? In school his only concern was running around with the prettiest girls in his class, and he chose you. That’s funny!

There you go again. For your information he could have married a number of girls, but he chose me. I had hoped you’d changed in the time you were away, but apparently it isn’t so. How did you get away with treating all of your Navy friends with the constant crap you dished out for me and Eloise?

After the tongue-lashing he received from his sister, he went up to sit with his father again while his mother cleaned up the kitchen. A lot had happened since he left. Madeline had three kids and they were school aged, and his elder sister Eloise had three children too. Perhaps he was getting old enough to be thinking about family life too, and settling down, but up to now he hadn’t given it a single thought.

Sitting with his father Reed considered his future. He’d received his discharge money, and he thought about using it to pay off some of the bills his mother talked about. And the education he’d received to become a Navy Seal wouldn’t help him get a job in this small Midwestern town. As of now his future appeared rather bleak. There was a lot to think about. The way his father looked, he couldn’t last very much longer, and his mother was completely worn out. Reed didn’t know much about ALS, but he needed to research it in the coming days. It was obvious his sisters hadn’t helped very much with their father’s care, and the whole burden of caring for him had fallen on his mother.

It was disturbing to him that his family had fallen so badly into debt. His father had retired many years after he left for the Navy and Reed didn’t know much about the Postal retirement system.

CHAPTER TWO

O n Monday morning Reed went to the bank to find out how badly his parents’ mortgage payments had fallen behind. He was shown into the office of the Vice President who was in charge of all mortgage loans. Reed explained the state of his father’s health and how his mother hadn’t kept up with the mounting bills.

I’ve been reviewing past due mortgage loans for a number of years and I’ve heard every sad story imaginable, but as a responsible officer of the bank our policies won’t allow me to accept the sob stories given so eloquently by a past due client, the Vice President said as he looked directly at Reed in a challenging way, and then he leaned back in his chair awaiting a reply.

Believe me, I’m not here to lay any sob story on your doorstep. I detest being talked down to like you have just done with me. Where I have been the last seven years I have found shit happens all around the world. I would think a man in your position would have developed a certain sense of empathy, but if that’s not the case let’s just stick to the facts in my case, shall we?

"You are quite direct with your comments, aren’t you? It seems we both got off on the wrong foot. I guess that happens on Monday mornings. Frankly, I am not accustomed to being addressed in your insulting manner, but let’s see what the records have to say. It appears this account is twelve payments in arrears. These figures are highly